‘But
if ye will not drive out inhabitants of the land from before
you; then it shall come to pass that those which ye let remain
of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides,
and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.” Numbers 33:55.

The air is splendid this side of the Hall of Springs, the
recent remnants of Hurricane Charley having scrubbed its lofty
pines into a watery bouquet. Unfortunately, this land is now
occupied by the Fear, and has been since Michael Powell became
the head of the FCC. There has been placed, in this land of
VLTs and polo and impish dining prudence, a pox upon all who
seek to experience rock & roll at its most raw and brazen
state. The Fear will find their way into your e-mail, your
television, your left ventricle, and there is precious little
you can do about it now. I witnessed a biker getting arrested
for peeing by the back fence, as if every mammal on the planet
doesn’t piss in the woods. I watched in horror as security
continuously ordered lawn patrons to stand behind the last
white line of the stairs to the amphitheater (“Not that one,
that one!” the employee commanded the befuddled young
girl in stretch jeans). Yes, stay off the stairs. As long
as tort reform eludes us comrades, we must keep them scared,
like infants in the kettle. Bash them with Maglites if they
resist.

Thin Lizzy then diverted my irksome mood by absolutely bombing
the stage with “Jailbreak” as my friend Scotty Mac spied us
in the 14th row. He ran over gleefully and threw his arms
around us, but they were watching, and they were unhappy.
“You cannot stand in the aisle,” one of them said. “Go to
your seat.” He was the only one in the aisle. The sun still
sat on the horizon and most had not entered the venue yet.
We grabbed him and plopped him in a seat as Lizzy, led by
the American Scott Gorham and Reading’s John Sykes proceeded
to destroy our lot with portrait-quality renditions of “Black
Rose,” “Are You Ready?” and “The Cowboy Song.” Since I’ve
last seen the band, Randy Gregg of Dee Snyder and Angel fame
now anchors the band along with drummer Michael Lee on drums.
It occured to me that the last time I saw Lee was in 1987
at a Pat Travers show at JB’s Theater, before the fear, before
the ear-bud army of yellow (or are they brown?) shirts were
commanded to ensure maximum profit and minimal resistance.
While at first blush calling this band Thin Lizzy without
its late great founder Phil Lynott at the helm might seem
a bit pretentious, in reality this incarnation is a fitting
tribute to the mad Irishman who wrote some of the best drinking
and fighting songs ever. Ever. Sykes handles the spotlight
respectfully and the unit brings the floor to its feet with
such fertile, endearing, femur-cracking goodness.

But then came the lag. Joe Satriani took the stage with his
team of technicians, and let’s be clear: The man knows his
way around an axe like Aldous Huxley knows his way around
a genetic assembly line. It is a ridiculous prospect, watching
the man noodle away at the thing. But for all his syrupy prowess,
the art is pure poop. I can’t drink it. I can’t fight it.
And I certainly can’t fuck it. The lengthy compositions sounded
like a Yamaha soundtrack to an ’80s action B-movie, which
produced a horrible memory in my mind of my buttery lip on
the couches of friends in early blackout hours, as Cinemax
was left on in some inadvertent Clockwork Orange experiment
or perhaps to keep me company as I experienced delirium tremens.
For all his talent, he still managed to act like every other
sophomoric rock star, weedling his way up the neck to end
every run and cutting the volume to gawk wide-eyed and open-mouthed
at the crowd, thereby eliciting the obligatory blow-job cheer.
This was not music. This was a 45-minute orgasm coming from
a guy that looks like a Halloween rendition of Paul Schafer
with the chops of Mozart. Eww.

After being herded into the beer garden like sheep (“Don’t
go towards the trees!” the Fear shouted to my companion as
he walked away from the line to find the bathroom) I switched
tickets with a friend and made the fourth row in time for
the legendary Deep Purple, and immediately a civil informant,
resplendent in yellow Izod and sandals, notified me that I
was in his seat, which I was not. Rather, I was standing a
bit in front of his seat because frontman Ian Gillian
had just bounded onstage in angelic white pajamas, his bare
feet bouncing at times in a pugilist shuffle, others in some
sort of tantric side-step, and I was transfixed. This is the
kind of human that the Fear produces. The overdone predatory
sense of entitlement that wrecks the intellect and creeps
into the very essence of sex, work, death . . . everything.
I pondered popping his bulbous nose with the heel of my hand
or crushing his instep with my boot (How can a man possibly
kick ass in sandals? What is wrong with men these days?)
but he had a fat young cherub-faced lad with him who seemed
to be enjoying himself and far be it from me to deny him the
full Purple experience.

It was a good choice, for now we tasted the band, as it were.
Former Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse appeared to be having
the time of his life with Gillian, Paice, Glover and company,
who appeared—despite 30-plus years in the business—to be fit,
tanned and still relevant. Longtime Ozzy/Rainbow keyboardist
Don Airey (replacing Jon Lord for this tour) looked like he
was about 30 years old, to my surprise! Yet to be sure, this
is “old money” rock, mimosas in the morning and personal trainers
in the afternoon, and God bless them after three decades of
hard living. At almost 60, Gillian had no trouble hitting
the high notes of “Highway Star” and “Space Truckin’,” the
air raid siren still piercing as he strutted about, waving
to fans and looking right into their eyes. And our eyes witnessed
some gems, including “Strange Kind of Woman” and “Speed King”
as well as later material like “Perfect Strangers” and “I’ve
Got Your Number.” They were loud, bewitching, robust and high-minded,
washing away all ill-will and replacing it with their time-tested
pedagogy. Gillian, his hair shorn into a salt-and-pepper mop,
made it a point to personally greet and thank the entire front
row before returning to deliver the 1968 classic “Hush.” We
were then forcibly asked, nay, commanded by the inhabitants
of the land before us to leave the band’s rich textures, the
brief hallucination besmirched, to re-enter the Brave New
World of community, identity and stability. Because we have
not driven them out, like common household pests.

Liquid
Language

Photo by: Joe Putrock

The
show must go on, foul weather be damned! Songstress
Suzanne Vega came to Albany on Monday night for
a free performance in Washington Park, only to
be greeted by the oncoming remains of Hurricane
Chuck. The concert was wisely moved indoors to
the Palace Theater at the last minuteOK,
the decision was actually made early that morningwhere
Vega and her band treated an enthusiastic audience
to a 90-minute-plus set that spanned her 20-year
career, including many of the songs from last
years Retrospective collection.

Good
Old Boys

Hector on Stilts, Rob Skane Lark
Tavern, Aug. 14

It seems like there’s a trend in the area to secrete music
away in nooks and backrooms, away from the bar—the upstairs
at the Larkin, for example (after the little second-floor
bar disappeared) or the backrooms of the Ale House or Lark
Tavern. Whether separating the audience from the lumpen barroom
proletariat is a good idea or not is debatable (and, of course,
it’s often born of necessity). But in this case, it certainly
doesn’t grant a band the opportunity to convert a crowd of
unsuspecting new listeners.

And given a crack at all in attendance at the Lark Saturday
night (and not just those sequestered at back tables) Berkshires
residents Hector on Stilts would have won a lot of new fans.
A few patrons from the busy barroom moved into the causeway
for various spells, perking up their ears a bit, drawn in
by the sound. But Hector on Stilts aren’t a forceful band
and need a little space and time to sneak up on you with their
smooth washes of sound, bright guitars and lifting harmonies.
“Winterland,” which came late in the set, is demonstrative
of the band’s appeal, offering a cryptic suggestion over easy,
melodic heartswells (“I turned a grain of sand into a winterland.
. . .”) then letting the words fall away and bursting wide
open into a gorgeously pulsing landscape of sound (early Coldplay
is too easy and not wholly accurate a reference, but there’s
something to it).

Cousins Jeb (primary singer, really tall, darkhaired) and
Clayton (average height, fairheaded) Colwell wove songs in
a suggestive and nuanced manner, blending smoothly in vocal
harmony and using guitars for color rather than bluster—whether
it was Jeb’s ascending line on the clever “Same Height Relation”
(a cheekily wistful reference to his towering height) or Clayton’s
subtle and strong touches throughout the night. The group—in
full-band mode, abetted by a dynamic performance from Suggestions
drummer Jason Schultz—inhabited a world of smooth and atmospheric
pop-rock hinged on strong, interesting arrangements. They
occasionally pitched into something with more of a rock bite,
skirting into brightly clever power-pop (a la XTC) or even
fuzz-walled, blazing rock (the extended coda to the humorous
“Furry Friends”). “Tears,” meanwhile, came off in a folk-poppy
vein, like some of the Rembrandts’ work. They also dipped
into some Latin-rock territory.

Jeb and Clayton grew up in Tucson, Ariz., and a few years
back took up residence near Pittsfield, where they are the
first rock group to be involved in that city’s compelling
Storefront Artist’s Project (in which creative types rent
out abandoned store spaces as studios, the glass front providing
a glimpse into the workings of their process). Recently Hector
on Stilts have also been at work on an album, and the tracks
made available sound promising, particularly the aforementioned,
heart-achingly pretty “Winterland.” They haven’t played in
Albany recently, but you may have caught them a few years
back at the Larkin (at MotherJudge’s late-lamented open mic
and their own gigs).

Local singer-songwriter (and former Lawn Sausages guitar hero)
Rob Skane opened up with a solid, too-short set of his edged
acoustic fare (like alt-rock peeled back to the heartwood
and packed with clever, often caustic lyrics). Bravely soldiering
on through PA issues and some needlessly excessive chatter
toward the stagefront, Skane stuck to his relatively mellower
stuff (“Troubadour Extraordinaire,” “Let It Be Me”) only offering
up the anti-Bush “You Preach Peace” as witness to his more
delightfully scathing work. Skane is also hard at work on
a new album, and having heard some excellent early demos,
I look forward to that one as well.

—Erik
Hage

Gone
Phishin’

Photo by: Joe Putrock

Phish
fans—sorry, that’s Phishheads—sure do have an
odd way of mourning the loss of their favorite
band, don’t they? Phish finally reached the end
of the tour last weekend, calling it quits after
21 years with the ginormous Coventry festival,
named for the Vermont town taken over by the band
and its fans. A crowd of more than 65,000, and
an unusually high number of garden gnomes, turned
out to experience one last jam (the band chose
“The Curtain With” to close their career). Meanwhile,
almost 5,000 cars were abandoned along Interstate
91 as fans hiked to the muddy concert grounds.